ReMix:Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest "Be Kind, Rewind" 5:59

We released Candy Corn II: The Sequeling, which was thoroughly & brilliantly inspired by The Twilight Zone, on Halloween, and only a few DAYS later, CBS announced a series reboot with Get Out director Jordan Peele involved...

COINCIDENCE?

I think... yeah, actually, it is... but still cool!

YoshiBlade really sold the TWZ concept with CCII, the same way that CCI channeled horror anthologies with accuracy & style. Here he takes on DKC2's "Stickerbush Symphony (Bramble Blast)" with a slower pop/EDM treatment that's a little synthwavey and features actual VHS casette noise bookends, to seal the titular deal. Kids these days ACTUALLY don't know about being kind and rewinding... it's an entire form of kindness that's been eradicated by, well... progress. YB writes:

"Soooooooooo long long ago I heard Hyperduck Soundwork's 'Yearning of the Winds' and I was moved by it, more just moved I was awash with ideas and I prophesized that PBS-core is a genre that's time is nigh. I wasn't just being over the top, I meant it! If there's one thing I don't want lost is the very real feeling of times past and how good music, done with the right atmosphere can pull us back to that time and give us a sort of tactile sensation. For me it's playing DKC on this gross old shag carpet, that was waaaay past it's prime."

Music is always kinda looking forward, backward, and sideways by its very nature, but that can certainly be done more explicitly & with a conscious effort to hone in on one particular aesthetic, one point in time that can crystallize for listeners through just the right sounds, playing just the right notes, with just the right textures. The artist has a good ear for doing just that, and even without the VHS FX & treatment, this shines through as a modernized synth stroll down 1980's nostalgia lane. Stranger Things is doing a fantastic job of capturing the time period for those who didn't live through it as children (congrats to BGC for inclusion of his track from There Came an Echo w/ Ash & Malukah on the S2 soundtrack!), but the show should also be seen as part of a larger resurgence, revisiting, and reinterpretation of those aesthetics, and this mix fits right in with that. Great stuff from a great album - check the whole thing out & get hyped for the return of The Twilight Zone!